David Suzuki came to Montreal for a week and found out that his foundation is holding a climate march in Ottawa on Sunday. So he’s leading it.

For the first time in many years, he says he will be marching with hope that Canada will make meaningful reductions in greenhouse gases.

“We want a very strong sendoff to the Canadian delegation” to talks in Paris.

“We’re delighted that they are going in such a positive way about climate,” he said in an interview.

“We’ve had nine-and-a-half years of a Harper government that has basically not confronted the issue of climate change. I believe that it is wilful blindness.

“It is as if the sun has come out now. And this (march) really is not so much to say, ‘Look, take climate seriously,’ but to say, ‘We’re glad that you have put it on the agenda, that you are going with a strong delegation — but we hope that you will be pushing for the strongest possible targets.

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“We must commit to not allowing the temperature to rise (more than) two degrees this century.”

Protest marches have less to protest since the Liberal victory, he believes.

Suzuki met the French ambassador a year ago and complained that there have been 20 previous international meetings about climate, “and emissions have continued to climb all that time. If the twenty-first one in Paris is just going to repeat what the other 20 have done, forget it!

“If you don’t declare those meetings a failure and take a different direction with enforceable targets … I just don’t see the point.”

But since then he senses a new international mood, especially with the Pope’s encyclical calling for climate measures.

Manon Dubois of the David Suzuki Foundation said the march will begin at 1 p.m. Sunday with the message that ending all use of fossil fuel “is 100-per-cent possible” by 2050.

While “things seem to be on an uptick” following the Liberal election, she says “people are marching essentially because we need to look at a bigger picture… We’re just trying to convey the message that we need to stop devastating climate change.”

She called it “a positive, hopeful message that we can solve climate change in our lifetime, but in order to do it we need to invest in clean and renewable energy solutions.”

Dubois welcomes anyone who wants to march. The route is about 2.7 kilometres. It begins at 1 p.m. Sunday at Ottawa City Hall, with some speeches. The march will then go along Elgin Street, Sussex Drive, and back to Parliament Hill, where there will be more speeches.

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